Hitherto, automated teller machines, such as those employed in financial institutions, allow a customer to pay in cash, such as coins or banknotes, and pay out cash to a customer, according to the contents of a customer transaction.
An example of technology proposed for such an automated teller machine includes a banknote pay-in/pay-out port that accepts and dispenses banknotes for a customer, a classification section that classifies the denomination and authenticity of inserted banknotes, a temporary holding section that temporarily holds inserted banknotes, and banknote cassettes that store banknotes for each denomination (see for example Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (JP-A) No. 2011-2921 (FIG. 1)).
In this automated teller machine, when a customer has inserted banknotes into the banknote pay-in/pay-out port in a pay-in transaction, the inserted banknotes are classified in the classification section. The automated teller machine then holds banknotes classified as normal banknotes in the temporary holding section, and banknotes that are classified as unsuitable for use in the transaction are replaced in the banknote pay-in/pay-out port and returned to the customer. Then, when the customer has approved the pay-in amount, the automated teller machine reclassifies the banknotes held in the temporary holding section by denomination in the classification section, and the banknotes are stored in the respective banknote cassettes according to their classified denomination.
As an example of such a temporary holding section, technology is proposed in which one end of a long, narrow tape is fixed to a circumferential side face of a circular cylinder shaped drum, with the drum being rotated in a predetermined direction to wind and hold banknotes against the drum circumferential side face together with the tape (see for example (FIG. 1 of) JP-A No. 2010-095340). In this temporary holding section, the drum is rotated in the opposite direction of the drum to release the banknotes.
It is desirable for the temporary holding section to dispense all of the held banknotes at the end of each transaction, such that banknotes held during the following transaction processing are not mixed with other banknotes.
Technology is accordingly proposed in which, as illustrated in FIG. 14A, grooves 654 are formed around the circumferential direction of a drum 625 inside a temporary holding section, and sensors detect whether or not a predetermined detection light has passed through the grooves 654. In such a temporary holding section a sensor is able to make precise detection that not even a single thin banknote remains.